TRADITIONAL, NOT CONVENTIONAL.

Osteoarthritis (March 11, 2014)

"Arthritis" just means “inflammation of a joint or joints” and it’s used as a general classification for many conditions, some of which bear little resemblance to each other outside of that one aspect. If you hear "arthritis" without any other qualification, it’s probably being used in reference to osteoarthritis, something which almost everyone over 50 has somewhere. If you have pain, inflammation and/or swelling in a joint, and an x-ray has shown some signs of deterioration there, you have probably been diagnosed with osteoarthritis.

I am frequently asked if acupuncture and/or chiropractic can help osteoarthritis. The answer is yes, they are both great treatments for the pain, inflammation and swelling. You will not see your x-rays change even if your symptoms disappear, but you should know that, in the absence of symptoms, x-ray signs of arthritis are not terribly important. They are evidence that there has been some damage to that joint in the past and the body has tried to repair it.The body's repair mechanism isn't perfect -- it can't usually restore damaged tissue completely to its original stage, and in the case of joint injury, those differences are visible on x-ray. In the absence of symptoms, x-ray evidence of osteoarthritis is rarely anything to worry about.